The Wootens

Max: 7 months old

2012-01-29T18:55:00.002-07:00

We're over the middle year hump and are on the back end of the first year. I can't believe how big this baby already is! Yesterday I put him in a 12-18 month hooded jumper and it fit. I gave the arms and legs one roll and it was perfect. I have to find him some new onesies, but apparently that's hard to come by when you don't want all Carter's. I'm so over Carter's.

He is rolling all over the place. He doesn't really show signs of crawling, but cruises all over the living room by rolling around. He figured out how to get to Carson's toys and it was plenty of motivation. I'm not sure how we are supposed to keep the little stuff out of his reach. We didn't have that problem with Carson...

There are tons of sounds and Dada's happening. Still no Mama's. He loves the rice cereal, still is so-so on the fruit. He makes the bitter-beer face all the time like they are too sour. He's sitting up 90% of the way all on his own. He does well, but he easily topples over if he tries to reach for something. We definitely can't trust him on his own like that just yet.

Here's our amazingly chubby, happy, giggly, silly, sleepy, rolly, adorable Max.

Cereal Killa'

2012-01-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

Max hasn't been so sure about straight fruit purees yet. He makes bitter beer face like they are too sour for his little palette. I started mixing rice cereal with the fruits and he loves it. He won't open his mouth all the way though. He just dives on the spoon so he gets a little in and the rest around his mouth. The spoons end up being a fun toy though. And do you like his little Trump comb-over? His hair grows right on top down the middle, just like Carson's did. If I don't push it to the side it goes half-way down his forehead. :)

Lazy day

2012-01-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

We boys were laying on the floor together the other day playing and it dawned on me that I could take an updated photo like one when Max was just born. I grabbed my camera and took a few of these monsters together.

Now:

6 months ago:

I don't even recognize Max in that photo!!!

Max keeps his eyes on Carson all day long. I'd LOVE to be in his head and know what he's thinking.

I asked Carson to tell me his ABCs and quickly flipped over to get a video. He asks me the funniest questions everyday. And lately he's been teasing everyone about their butt, tries to pull down your pants and always says how gross butts are. That's what you hear at the end of the video.... He was attacking me. And you can see Max rolling all over and playing with those toys that always come with us. His toes.

Preschool Days

2012-01-13T11:39:00.001-07:00

We've about completed our first full week of preschool today. The first week was just two days and now we are to four full days every week. He cried with the saddest little quiver lip for the first three days when I dropped him off. Tuesday afternoon his teacher said they talked to him about not giving me a hard time when I leave. The very next morning he was a new kid. He gave me a kiss (on the hand), kissed his brother goodbye and was happy as ever.

He's been talking non-stop about planning sleepovers with all the girls. Honestly, I have no idea what any of the boys' names in his class even are. And neither does he. I hope he ends up liking going all the time. My days have seemed so much longer lately!

I took my camera with me on the first day to hopefully get a few photos of him out front. Somehow I forgot that I didn't grab my memory card and it was a pretty gloomy morning anyway. I brought everything Friday morning and he played along for a few minutes. He's such a little cheeseball and we couldn't adore him any more. He just looks so freaking big. :( I can't believe we will have a 4-year-old soon!

6 month checkup for Max

2012-01-05T16:20:00.001-07:00

After we dropped Carson off we had to run right over to Max's 6 month appointment. No doubt about it, he's still a biiiig boy! He sure is a happy big boy though. He's trying to attack my phone as I type this. :)

Weight: 19lb 11.6 oz - 82%
Height: 27.5 inches - 83%

First day of preschool for Carson

2012-01-05T16:04:00.001-07:00

We had our one trial run day a few weeks ago which was questionable. Yesterday Carson started getting a little freaked out about going back. He half-cried when I dropped him off and was telling me not to leave because I'm his best friend. Luckily his teacher scooped him right up and got him to help with breakfast.

I was beyond excited to pick him up and see what happened. Apparently he was great and says he had a fun day. Thank. You. He ate good, took a nap and got to play outside since it was so warm today.

I got a ton of work done and hope he continues doing well! It's an understatement that we all need him to embrace some structured release of energy.

Max's first real food

2012-01-03T12:38:00.001-07:00

Max has been acting like he wants what we're eating for a few weeks now. I like to wait until the 6 month mark for any food so we were excited to let him try something. I let him lick an apple slice and he went nuts! On Christmas Eve morning we decided we'd try bananas for the first time. He seemed to love them and ate most of it just fine, with a few silly stink-faces. The second day of bananas was so-so and the third day he wouldn't eat them at all. I decided to give him a break and we'll try again really soon. I got an avocado yesterday so we'll probably try that next. Everyone got a turn at feeding him. I can't believe he's so big already!!!!

Great demo, huh? I think he was excited......

Christmas 2011

2012-01-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a reeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy long post. I brought my laptop along on our drive to Utah this weekend and that's the ONLY reason I have these photos to show now. Where does time go these days?!?!

My dad got to come out for Friday to Monday which made our weekend that much better. The boys (Carson, Max and Dustin) all got beyond spoiled. We let them open a present on Christmas Eve. Carl told Dustin to open one of the ones that Jordan sent and it was a little too big to be the Christmas EVE present. He ended up getting this PS3 with two games, a Nintendo 3DS with 3 games and an iPod.

The gift Carson got to open was this horse on a stick. He tries to "giddy up" everything in our house so I ordered this thing hoping he'd use it instead. And he got it this night because I couldn't figure out how to wrap it. I just gave him the brown box. haha

We asked him what he wanted to name it and he immediately yelled, "Cowboy Balone!". I'm pretty sure this is derived from Karl Malone (pronounced the same, but with a B) which was in one of his monster truck library books. We all laughed so freaking hard.

Daddy and the boys - Carson got new Christmas PJs and Max wore the ones that Carson did on his first Christmas. :) Yes, Max is a big boy!

Grandma Susan and the boys

On to Christmas morning......... Carson got a ball pit and a trampoline.

You don't jump on the trampoline like a super hero?

Me and my boys.

I was shopping at TJ Maxx and found one lonely Stinky the Garbage Truck. I knew this would be a hit so I called my dad to see if he was still looking for a gift for Carson. See, for MONTHS we had to go straight to the Stinky display in the grocery store before we did anything else to play with this thing. I was not going to shell out $60 at Target for it, but when I found it months later I knew it was a sign. He was pretty excited and surprised since he had forgotten about it by now.

Dustin was on world 8 by the next morning on Mario. P.S. There are only 8 worlds.....

Carson got his "5 buck monster truck", aka a remote control Jeep.

Carl got me and my mom each a Snuggie. I still can't believe he actually paid money for these things. She loves hers. I already returned mine. Oops.

Aunt Christy and Max

My dad also bought Carson these Nerf guns. We ended up with a full on Nerf war in our house. Carson couldn't quite pull back the gun himself to shoot so he had Luke to help him out. We were all dying laughing at these guys.

I flipped over just in time to get this video. I love it! Watch to the very end to see Carson's sign off.

After the fun died down the boys crashed hard. Max had had enough.

I've been wanting to try shaped bokeh for a while now. I figured my tree would be the perfect place for lots of little lights. This is pretty fun and all done in-camera!

Before heading off to take Grandpa to the airport I got a couple photos. I joke to him that since I couldn't have been less athletic I had to give him boys to make up for it. We sure miss Grandpa!

Max: 6 Months Old (and 4 days)

2012-01-03T10:20:00.002-07:00

Max was technically exactly 6 months on Thursday, but we weren't home to take a photo. We took off for Utah at 4am on Thursday morning to get to Amber's memorial at 3pm. I brought along the camera in the hopes that I would take one there, but there was no chance. That was a crazy busy day so I just gave up on that idea. Yesterday he was 6 months and 4 days so it's better than nothing! Close enough, right?

Here is our cutest little buggy.

I seriously love these little toes. I find myself taking photos of them every month at this time, so I might as well just keep posting them for comparison too!

My lady killer.

Where's Carson?

2011-12-21T16:26:00.001-07:00

On a whim I decided to check into the preschool through our school system. The part time classes are only 2 hours 45 minutes a day which to me isn't worth it. They had just had a full time spot open up in the brand new preschool though. We went to check it out and I absolutely loved the school. Carson is such a smart, but hyper kid and needs so much attention. He needs structure and we have such a tough time getting him to listen at home. If he has something constructive and fun to do he's an angel. My hope is that he'll learn how to listen and follow directions there when his energy is directed correctly. I jumped at the opening. He gets to start January 5th and we are all registered already.

They let me bring him Friday since it was the last day and parent day. He did great all day until I got there and then didn't want to listen or participate at all. Here you see the whole class sitting on the floor listening to the teacher. Mind you, the rest of the room is full of parents. Can you spot where my kid is???? Hint: he has a mohawk and he's NOT with the class. I know it was his first day....I'm not giving up hope.

My sleepy bug.

2011-12-21T16:11:00.001-07:00

More of sleepy Max. Sometimes I wake him up on accident because I can't help but kiss his pouty sleep lips.

And the other day I was getting ready, Carson was watching tv and Max was hanging out in the swing in the bathroom. I went to grab some coffee and came back to a pile of stuffed animals on him. The plus side is Carson loves to share with Max. The down side is he doesn't know when to stop.

Basement Scooter

2011-12-21T16:07:00.001-07:00

The one upside of having an unfinished basement is that Carson can ride his scooter and bike down there in the winter. This has kept us busy this week so far. I foresee much more time down there in the very near future too...

Gymnastics

2011-12-21T16:04:00.001-07:00

Carson finished his last gymnastics class this weekend. I think we will take the next round off and do it again when he turns 4 and doesn't need a parent with him. He has been jumping on everything in the house constantly since starting this class. Guess what Santa is bringing for Christmas!?!? I took a few pics with my phone this weekend because I realized I hadn't since the first class. I can't believe it didn't dawn on my to bring my camera in 7 whole weeks! These are bad, but the slow speed gives some good blurry action shots. ;)

Mom and Dad Time

2011-12-11T13:49:00.001-07:00

Here a couple random pics.

I love when Carson asks to take a picture with my phone. I never know what I'll find afterwards. Today he took sone cute ones while I was getting in kiss time.

The ones of Carl and Max are so cute. They were swinging before bed the other night and I made him stop for a shot.

The other day the boys both fell asleep on me at the same time. I was super stuck, but it was pretty cute.

Gingerbread cookies

2011-12-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

We (I) finally didn't totally screw something up that was baked!!! Carson had a ridiculously fun time with the rolling pin and cookie cutters. Thanks to my Grandma Stonehocker for the cutters! I wouldn't have ever had them in the house on my own.... I actually think they came from my bridal shower.

And yes, I was out of flour so I used gravy flour so it wouldn't stick. I told you I don't bake. I had no idea my flour was gone!

Chubby bath baby

2011-12-11T13:26:00.001-07:00

I want to bite him! In a "you're so rolly and chubby and squishy and lovely" kind of way.

Little Monkey Bizness

2011-12-11T13:23:00.001-07:00

Here are a few silly pics from LMB on Friday.

First taekwondo class

2011-12-11T13:20:00.001-07:00

Carson was supposed to start taekwondo last Saturday, but when Carl got there people were playing volleyball. I called and they said the class had been moved but they forgot to tell anyone.

This was supposed to be a parent and tot class. I wasn't sure how involved I would need to be (I'll throw down if I have to.....). I asked the teacher if I should stand with him and he said not unless I wanted to. I just sat down with my mom and Max to see what would happen. There were a lot more little kids than I thought there would be. Carson ended up requiring his own teacher to stand with him because he was so distracted. The big kids were yelling with every kick and there was a lot going on. Plus Carson was one of the smallest ones. We think they combined this class with the 4-5 year old class. He kept wandering up into the front line and doing his own thing. At one point the were stretching a leg to the side and he got confused. He decided to lay down on his side.

Overall I think we will stick with this one. It was pretty hard to describe to him what kind of class it would be. Last week I told him it was martial arts and asked if they get to paint. See? In the end he loved getting to punch and kick and play. We'll practice a little at home so he is more prepared next time.

He's on the left-hand side if the pic in the black shirt.

iPhone pics update

2011-12-03T15:07:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned how much I hate snow?? We woke up to a ton this morning and nothing at all had been plowed. But I had a long overdue hair appt and wasn't going to miss it for anything. Luckily Carl was okay to give up the jeep and I am now a believer. I am in love with our van, but that thing doesn't go (or stop) in the snow. The bad news is that today was supposed to be Carson's first tae-kwon-do class and when they got there no one else was there. Bummer city. I told Carl that Carson has been asking to go see Puss N Boots all week. Those two and my mom are there now so Max and I are getting some quiet time.

I love being able to post these pics from my phone, but I can't comment on them individually. Here's a run down:

We have lots of Max sleeping and just being his cute self, Carson's art at Little Monkey Bizness, his mohawk-turned-Flock of Seagulls hairdo in the bath, his first time watching the Grinch while we set up the tree this week and the awesome pirate ship I got for $6. He now says that Santa says "yo ho ho". It's confusing, we know. His current Christmas list is "5 squirter guns and a 5 buck monster truck". Shopping should be smooth this year. :)

Max: 5 Month Old

2011-11-29T20:02:00.001-07:00

Today totally flew by and I'm just running in here to post these. I took these this morning with the hopes of editing all the ones I liked, but I only got to these two. I'll hopefully post the others soon. Yeah, I have a looooot of photos of Max. Sorry if you are sick of seeing him... I'm not. :)

He was totally chill for this shoot and I didn't have any problem getting him to focus like I did last month. He didn't really even notice the bear this time either. He's just as happy as ever! And huge. My goodness. We have literally had diaper blow outs, sometimes multiple ones per day, every single day for almost 2 weeks straight now. For as much as I'm fighting it I think we already need to go to size 3 diapers. I upgraded to a box of size 2s about 4 weeks ago and I just hate wasting them! He is growing faster than I can keep up with! Two weekends ago we were at lunch and the waitress said, "So what is he, about 9 months?" She looked like she saw a ghost when I said 4.

Carl says I have an obsession with feet. But the truth is I just have an obsession with photos of our feet. Not feet in real life or anyone else's feet, just ours.

Here was Max crashed on my lap this afternoon for nap time. He could not be any sweeter when he sleeps. There are actually very few days when I don't take a picture of him while he is sleeping. Most days I get my break when Carson naps because Max will sleep on my just about anytime. I get a little while of TV catch up and work on my laptop in peace and quiet. Technically I could be doing something more productive during this time, but I like having a built in break too! I get a lunch hour just like any other job, right?!

Max and all his details.

2011-11-28T08:37:00.001-07:00

I was hard at work the other morning on random things when I stopped to look at Max. He won't take his eyes off me lately and is always giving the sweetest smiles. I dropped everything I was doing and decided I needed some new photos of him NOW. We had a quick shoot so I could freeze my 4-month-old in time, as much as possible. I am addicted to baby details. His bald spot + baby mullet, his flat baby bum with diaper wrinkles, all his leg rolls, his tiny toes, his pink lips. I guess I can kiss the photos when he's older. He'll probably think it's weird as a grown up if I try and kiss his toes.....

And my favorite: He totally got my eyebrows. I have mastered the skeptical face.

Air + Space Museum

2011-11-07T17:09:00.001-07:00

Carson has been begging to go to the museum at Lowry for awhile now. Lowry is an old air force base that now has awesome neighborhoods. Carl's dad Dave was even stationed there years ago when it was an active base.

We called it the Air Force Base Museum and Carson called it the Air Force Space Museum. It's really the Air + Space Museum. We used it for bait and told him he could go when he was potty trained. He sure didn't let us forget so we headed there on Saturday. It was sort of, you know, boring, but Carson had fun. It was worth the wait to give him something to look forward to! Surprisingly he liked the space ship stuff the best. Carl loved the antique Jeeps.

Did I mention he got a Mohawk the other day? Talk to Carl about that one. It definitely fits his personality now.

Baby seat.

2011-11-07T16:49:00.001-07:00

We had one of these seats for Carson and it was probably one of the top 3 things that got the most use. It doubles as a real high chair so we used it at restaurants for a long time. Restaurant high chairs seriously could not be more grimey so I loved having something I knew was clean. But when we went to get it out for Max we couldn't find the actual seat. All the parts without a seat to sit in don't really do us much good. All we can think is that we left it somewhere and don't remember.

Max has started to balance sitting up on his own and hasn't liked laying on his play mat lately. I decided to go ahead and order a new one Friday and it came today. Got to love Amazon Prime!!! Personally I think you get waaaay more for your money with this than a Bumbo for the same price (actually less since you have to buy a tray for the Bumbo separately). Anyways, it's called the Summer Infant 3 Stage Super Seat if anyone is interested.

Max: 4 month dr appt

2011-11-04T14:37:00.001-06:00

I knew going into Max's appointment today that we'd hear a large number for his weight. I mean, the kid is wearing 9 month outfits that fit him perfect! He was happy as ever...until the shots of course. That part always sucks. We're all having snuggle time now and both boys are crashed out.

At his 2 month appt he was 12 lb 13oz. Today he was 17lb 2.7oz!!! Geez! And he was up to 26.75 inches. We're definitely doing something right here. :)

That's 86th percentile for weight and 94th for height! Carson never got over 75% for height and 25% for weight.

This is what's in my arms right now and one from playtime last night.

The monster Jeep.

2011-11-02T13:08:00.001-06:00

Carl and Carson's baby (or mistress, as I refer to it) got its lift, wheels and tires this week. Do you know how many photos of these things I've now had to look at and they all LOOK THE SAME?!?! hehe I tried to explain this to Carl like showing him shoes or clothes that all look the same to him. I'm just happy that they're happy. Carson is definitely his father's son. He calls it his monster Jeep and loves it so much. He asked me if he could go check out the cool tires this morning when we got up. :)

Carl took a pic of Carson before the lift, then again last night when we got home with everything done. I sure hope Max likes it as much as Carson has!

Halloween Night: 2011

2011-11-01T16:47:00.000-06:00

I saw a picture of a toddler dressed like a knight and a baby as a red dragon on the Martha Stewart website a few weeks ago. I was at a total loss of ideas at that point, knew I had the dragon costume as an option and the duo was born. Carson's outfit was beyond easy when I found the gray sweats, a dollar sword and a couple-dollar shield at Target. I had bought fabric for a cape for him a while ago and hadn't gotten around to making it yet. It all happened to be the right colors too. I whipped up a cape during nap time on Sunday (yes, I'm a procrastinator) and we were good to go. I topped it off at the last minute with one of my headbands and we had the knight and the dragon! I would have let him be whatever he wanted, but every.single.option. we gave him he said yes to. It was getting impossible to narrow it down and he wasn't coming up with anything concrete!

I knew we had an hour of daylight left when I started cooking dinner last night. All I cared about was getting out for a few photos of the boys' costumes and then we could do whatever we wanted. Of course Max fell asleep about 20 minutes before it was time to go out. I had to get him up (because of the light) and the poor kid was so sleepy. We quickly got pics in the front yard and then trick-or-treated for about 45 minutes. Carson had a ton of fun, but was sick yesterday so he got burnt out really fast. Overall they were as cute as I'd hoped and we all had fun.

I tried to get Max to balance sitting up long enough for a photo, but he kept falling over. Darn that heavy head!

I couldn't help but go back to Carson's first Halloween to compare. These kids look so much alike! I love love love them and those cheeks!! It's so hard to believe Carson was ever this little. (Man, my hair was LONG back then!)

I had to do this too:

Halloween outfit #2

2011-10-31T19:37:00.001-06:00

After the pumpkin PJs came off it was time for the Halloween onesie. It's cheesy, but I'll never be able to say this is our child's first Halloween again. :( Max makes it look super cute.

The pumpkin patch: 2011

2011-10-31T11:55:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we went to May Farms for some pumpkin patch fun. It couldn't have been a nicer day and we spent about 3 hours enjoying the fall festivities. I wore Max (since strollers and fields don't mix well) and held my camera so I was pretty hot and tired by the end. Those two babies are heavy! :) I can't believe today is already Halloween and we have just over three weeks until Thanksgiving! I am so not ready for the holidays. I hope everyone has a safe and fun day and night trick-or-treating!

Carl thinks he's so funny. And poor Carson still rocks his Carson Palmer jersey even though he isn't a Bengal anymore. Please don't tell him.

Carson ran up to me and said, "Mommy! Mommy! I picked the littlest pumpkin EVER!"

Max makes his debut out of the wrap! He will chew on any finger that comes close enough...

Potty. Trained.

2011-10-31T11:26:00.001-06:00

You have no idea how happy I am to scream..........Carson is potty trained!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They say one day they'll just decide to do it and that really was true for him.

He has been going in the potty once or twice a day for months now and was being so stubborn about going more. Last week my mom got him new library books and a bunch were about the potty. He read them over and over for about 5 days before. My friend Jamie told me a box of small presents worked for her son so I wanted to try that too. We had promised him all kinds of fun things if he went, but they weren't concrete enough to make him go NOW. I got 10 or so small toys from target, wrapped them and told him he could pick a present every few times he peed or if he finally pooped. He had never ever pooped on the potty. He said it was scary and we couldn't convince him otherwise.

He was going a lot last week and then came Friday. I was down to the last diaper and asked him what we should do. He said, "maybe I could wear super hero underwear". Great idea, kid. That whole day he peed in the potty over and over and pooped TWICE without me even asking or knowing! He was rocking it. Then he got grumpy after a nap and I had my doubts that night. But since then he hasn't had a single accident and has gone to the potty every time in the toilet. He even went 4 times on saturday while we ran errands. I bought him a huge Buzz and huge Thomas balloon because I made the promise and he didn't forget. I am so not above bribery for no diapers!

The small presents seemed to be a good immediate incentive. He got 2 or 3 per day and were much cheaper than diapers too!!! We are laughing every time he gets up and goes in the bathroom. He comes out and can't figure out why we're smiling at him. :)

Gymnastics

2011-10-31T11:10:00.001-06:00

I got the aurora rec book last week and realized I really should get Carson in some classes. He has sooo much energy that we can't ever burn it all. For his age right now we could start gymnastics and also taekwon-do in December.

This is the parent and tot class. When he finishes this 8 week schedule he'll be able to take the class without us. He's so dang big now! I plan on having Carl do the class with him, but he couldn't come yesterday so I did it. I couldn't believe how tired I was after an hour of that. I wonder if I need to start exercising?!?! Boo. Carson had so much fun though. He did surprisingly well with the group and did everything the teacher told him. I thought he'd just run off and do his own thing the whole time.

I guess t-ball starts at 4 here and for soccer he has to be 4 by March. Hopefully we can find something like that for spring too!

Halloween PJs

2011-10-31T10:51:00.001-06:00

I'm testing out the Blogger app here from my phone. If this works it will be so freakin' easy to keep up on my phone pic posts!!!

I found the Halloween PJs and onesie that my friend Jeanette gave us when Carson was born. He wore them then and I love getting more use out of all the clothes we have! Max will be wearing Carson's dragon costume from his first Halloween too. I can't bare to not reuse that kind of stuff when they wear it for 30 minutes!

Here are his cute PJs this morning:
(and a side note: he just started blowing bubbles on purpose which is so adorable)

Meeting our pals.

2011-10-30T19:30:00.000-06:00

A few weekends ago we got to meet up with our friends Scott and Jeanette from Utah. Scott's brother lives here in Winter Park and they came out for his wedding. We were able to meet them up in the mountains for lunch and some time for the kiddos to play. We miss you guys and hope to get to see you again soon!

Carson, Peyton and Connor at the most fun playground around in Georgetown.

After we left them we went to do a little exploring. I have to say that this was one of the coolest settings for a house that I've ever seen. I could totally live here. At least for the summer. :)

Colorado colors are seriously amazing in the fall.

Max: 4 months

2011-10-29T17:05:00.000-06:00

We were running out for errands at lunch time today and realized it was the 29th. I had to wait until we got home to get Max's photos for the day, but it is super cloudy and dark today. We made it just in time with what little light there was to spare.

This was a little more difficult than the others so far. Max has totally started to be interested and grabby to everything around him. This bear was pure torture. All he wanted to do was eat him. Then he'd see his own toes and try to bend over and eat them. I finally called my mom in to try and get his attention behind me, but that didn't really work either. Somehow I managed some adorable ones still. This kid is something else. He's so chill and we must have had some good karma coming our way to get him in our lives!

He's had on two 9 month sized outfits this week that fit him perfect. He's such a little chubster compared to what Carson was like! I am getting so excited for when he can sit up and I will be taking lots of photos of his chubby naked thighs and butt. :) I love that I got a baby with rolls this time!

His 4 month check up is on Wednesday....can't wait to see how much he has gained this time.

Matching monkeys in matching monkeys

2011-10-27T16:00:00.000-06:00

For the most part I am not a fan of matchy-matchy. Cheeseball with cheese crackers. But then the other day two little pairs of monkey pjs practically jumped into my cart while shopping. I almost judged myself and then stopped. I was going to put Carson and Max into matching monkey pjs. And I felt darn good about it. It was a perfect cap to our snow day yesterday.

Carson's eyes almost look green next to Max's...

About this time I started to realize that Max was doing more in those jammies than I'd hoped.....

He has started to try to grab everything! Toys are finally being noticed and everything is being chewed. The camera looked mighty tasty.

Yep, I was right. He lovingly dirtied the monkeys so the matchy dream ended much sooner than I had planned. After a wardrobe change he took a long nap in the swing. This was one of Carson's outfits that he word for some of our favorite photos of him. I'm totally going to recreate them for comparison! He's so sweet when he sleeps.

Luckily he's mostly able to sleep through the antics of the terrorist.

A million iPhone photos.....

2011-10-25T13:51:00.000-06:00

Lets just say that I take pics with my phone of the boys at least once a day, usually more. I love having a camera at my fingertips all the time so why not use it? I take a pic of Max almost everyday of him asleep on my lap. They mostly all look the same, but each day he's a tiny bit bigger. :( These are for the most part newest to oldest.

This was the 3rd time on this morning I had tried to wake him up gently. Have you ever seen so many smiles from someone waking up???

Carson started singing something one morning so I told him to hold it so I could get the camera. This cracks me up.

Enough for one post?

Rollin' with the homies.

2011-10-21T19:19:00.001-06:00

For a few weeks now we've been putting Max on his belly and he'll roll (fall) over on his back. He tries to look up so hard that he loses his balance and rolls over. Then he quickly started trying to roll from his back to his belly, but could only go about 75% of the way. That darn elbow just kept getting in the way! He has had a few 99% goes in the last few days, but he officially got it tonight with a complete rotation on purpose! I put him down on a blanket next to the kitchen while I got dinner out and he rolled over two different times, both times catching me way off guard. After dinner we put him down so everyone could see and he was a rolling machine! Look at him go!!!

This one was 5 days ago while he was trying to scoot. He really does it if you put your hands at his feet so he has something to push off of.

Max's friends.

2011-10-21T09:07:00.000-06:00

I’m so grateful for the friends I have in my life. Last year I met my dear friend Jamie and have been so lucky to have her to bounce off of when we need it. Granted, we haven’t seen each other enough in the last year because we were both exhausted and pregnant, but good friends can pick up like they saw each other yesterday. Our babies were due about 6 weeks apart and then she found out they were actually having twins! Quite a shocker….. So when Max ended up coming a week late (on Jamie’s birthday!) and her babes were just under 3 weeks early, their birthdays were only 11 days apart. But it’s more like Max is at least a full month older and he already looks so much bigger!

I’m so sad, but so happy for Jamie’s family, that they are moving to OK in a matter of days. I couldn’t bare to let her go without one last gab-fest and baby date. I’m sure going to miss her, but luckily we live in a world where it’s beyond easy to stay in touch 24/7!

Here is Max, Savannah and Weston. (Carson just ran up to the photos and said, “That’s my brother, Max. Look at how big his head is!” LOL)

No training wheels.

2011-10-18T10:16:00.000-06:00

A few weekends ago I was in the house and the boys were outside. Luke came in announcing I had to come watch Carson. He alleged that Carson was riding his bike without the training wheels. I didn't believe him for a second (great mother I am), but grabbed the camera and ran anyway. Much to my surprise, here is Carson with no training wheels and an awesome grass dismount. Where'd my baby go??!!

Babes

2011-10-17T12:02:00.002-06:00

Football Sunday

2011-10-10T12:34:00.001-06:00

We got all 3 boys in their Bengals gear yesterday for football Sunday. We had 2 of the same outfit from when Carson was a baby so we have new one for Max. They are too cute together! I get so excited to see these two brothers grow up together. Carson loves Max so much and makes sure to tell me everyday. He has started calling Max the same nicknames as I do and he talks to him in the exact same way. He's such a little copycat, but it's so endearing to watch him. He has been remarkably gentle with him and seems to really understand how to act around his baby brother. Don't get me wrong, he has his moments when he is being too hyper and doesn't realize how it will effect Max, but that is always unintentional.

Max: 3 months old

2011-09-29T15:38:00.001-06:00

Our Mini Dude is somehow 3 months old today. He is still growing like crazy and isn't wanting to sleep as much all of a sudden. He's been doing lots of new things....I have tons of new photos to post soon so I'll post more about him then.

Look at him trying to sit up!

This is the surprised/confused/intrigued face.

Annnnnnnd then he starts to lean.............. Impressive bubble action though, eh?

Playing with the boys

2011-09-24T14:26:00.000-06:00

I seriously suck at personal photos lately. I guess since I always have Max in one arm now it hasn't been totally feasible to shoot around the house. I grabbed it a few times on Thursday though. Max is seriously getting so big already. His cheeks are to die for, especially when he gives you a huge gummy grin.

Carson's "I'm a dead zombie" face.

Max chilling on my lap and Carson getting a playtime injury.

Still working on sharing Mommy and Daddy.

Max has rolled belly-to-back a few times in the last couple days. He is slowly starting to like his playmat. He looks at things for a minute and then can't figure out why he isn't being held anymore. But he is starting to work those little legs.

Can't get enough

2011-09-13T14:50:00.002-06:00

Lots of baby staring going on in our house. Love this little guy.

The fire engine museum.

2011-09-10T16:22:00.001-06:00

We've had a membership to the Children's Museum in Denver for almost two years now. I decided to renew it because it's a place we can go to year-round and there will be things for Max to do when he gets a little bigger too. Carson always calls it the "fire engine museum" because they have a full-sized real fire truck inside. The bad news this time was that apparently they are adding a new floor above the truck and they have it closed off through the end of the year. He was a liiiiiiittle upset about that part.

I can't remember the last time I took my camera with me there. I figured I should document Carson playing at one if his very favorite places. Although, with a baby strapped to me and a camera that normally goes around my neck, it was a difficult situation. My freaking camera is so heavy so my wrist was killing me after holding it up above Max's head for 2 hours! Go me! I'm so smart sometimes. You'll also see Carson was once again in "ignore his mother" mode.

The train room.

The grocery store.

Making pizza.

The vet clinic. We usually spend a long time in this room. He puts bandages on all the animals, takes them in and out of the cages and makes appointments for me to bring in his cat at the computer and phone station.

See.....Max was there too! I think I had 5 different moms come up to me to ask about my wrap this day.

Carson was fascinated by the projector lights on the floor and kept making me put my foot in it with him.

The workshop room. They have really real tools, saw, screws etc. in this section. I'm just starting to get comfortable with him playing in there. It's been the one place he always wants to go just because it's the one place I wouldn't let him go.

And the bubble room.

iPhone Pics of the Moment: 9.7.11

2011-09-07T11:35:00.000-06:00

We had an insane weekend trip to Utah. We didn't sleep more than 2 hours total on Friday and we're totally playing catch up now. Here are a bunch of my random phone pics from the last week. Shocker: they're of the boys.

Before we left Carson watered the frog in his jammies and froggy boots:

Hitting the road (having movies in the van was awesome!):

Carson has to get in on every photo he sees being taken now.

A pitstop at a park in Wyoming. Have I mentioned how much I HATE Wyoming??

Max was so ready to be done with the car seat at the end of Monday.

Max's 2 month appt.

2011-09-01T08:03:00.001-06:00

Max got to go see the doctor yesterday. He was all smiles until the end of the appointment. You know, when the real fun begins. Poor kid.

I had my camera in my bag so I grabbed some of him just before the doctor got in the room. I realized I hadn't taken any personal photos for 2 weeks! I've been grabbing my phone since it's quick and easy, but I'm trying to get back to capturing the little moments.

He kills me.

The doctor said everything looked more than great. He's obviously growing well and developing like a champ.

He was 12lb 13oz which I assumed was pretty big. Then I saw Carson was 11lb 1oz at this appointment! Max really is big! He was also 23 3/4 inches which put him just over 75% for both height and weight.

Thennnnn came the shots. He turned purple and then was okay after I picked him up. Then he got a little mad again when we were about to leave. Here's his scrunchy cry-face.

He cried on the way home, but I knew he was just hungry and now tired. He sleeps most mornings and he had been up more than usual. We got home and he crashed while eating. I scooted him over on the couch and his lips turned into this:

Think he was tired? Carl told me for Max's sake I shouldn't post these photos. Umm, don't you know who I am? Those lips are no joke.

I got some video of those things in action too, plus a good sleep smile.

I had pulled out that onesie from Carson's stuff and put it on Max for the first time. I couldn't resist going to find the pics I knew I had of Carson in it. It was eerie with Max wearing it because I could only picture Carson in it! He was about 3 1/2 months here and in this blog post:

Here's one I missed from the other day of Max for a little comparison:

After we got home from picking up Carson, Max just couldn't get settled. He cried A LOT for him. I couldn't get him to eat and he just seemed really uncomfortable. Of course I couldn't find his Tylenol anywhere so I had to have my mom grab some on the way home. I got about an hour of peace with Saint Sleepy Wrap. I seriously will sing this thing's praises for as long as I live. I love every second of having him in that thing.

Back to taking photos of the little moments, I did some contorting to get these memories.

After some medicine and a bath he did pretty good last night, other than wanting to eat for most of the night. At least I know when that kind of thing is coming after a day of not enough eating.

Max - 2 months old

2011-08-29T13:58:00.003-06:00

Boo. Our Mini Dude is officially 2 months old. It's like he just came into our lives and like I've known him forever. Max is still the most amazingly calm baby. He really is what I hoped he would be, but didn't think we'd be so lucky. He wakes up, wants to eat right away, spends a while playing and talking to us and goes right back to sleep. He rarely ever just cries like Carson always did. I don't think we've had even one instance where he was crying and we didn't know why or couldn't comfort him immediately. He really doesn't cry unless you take too long to feed him! I even took him to a girl's dinner downtown on Saturday night and he didn't make a peep the entire time. I sort of don't know what to do in these situations because of our normal experience with Carson, even now.

He is so much fun to have around. For as much work as it is having a second baby he has made it so easy. Three times this week he slept in his bed from 8:30pm to almost 2am! For a breastfed baby that is WAY more than I could ask for! I'll pull him into bed with me when he wakes up for the first time, he eats for a minute and then usually doesn't really wake up to eat until around 5am. I haven't even felt that tired. (Except for today because he tossed and turned last night for some reason...)

He's getting so big. I just started putting him in 3-6 month outfits and they fit! I had Carson in some newborn sized outfits until he was 3 months old!

Carson has turned into a total ham. He wants to be in every photo I take now. You can see how Max feels about that. He gets such a serious face when he sees the camera.

We started getting real big belly laughs out of Max this weekend. I was able to get some on video. I absolutely adore this boy.

iPhone Pics of the Moment

2011-08-17T14:08:00.000-06:00

How we tackle grocery shopping in the baby wrap:

Birthday dinner loves:

Stroller ride to the park:

"Look Mom! I'm a baseball man!" Alrighty then.

Carson was planking at the playground:

He crashed while in time-out.

6 weeks new

2011-08-15T10:39:00.001-06:00

I just have to say it again. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have Max. We try really hard to not say that Carson was a “bad” baby. Ugh, that’s so horrible to say! But he was more than difficult. In contrast, Max couldn’t be more happy and fun so far. By no means am I saying he is a better baby…this has just been a more enjoyable experience. I guess I just value moms who are honest with their feelings and experiences and so I want to be honest. I know probably 90% of it comes from me though. I feel SO much more confident this time and I’ve grown so much in the last three years.

With just 6 short weeks we are starting to get a glimpse into Max’s personality. So far he is a deep sleeper and more of an observer than his extrovert for a brother who has been super vocal since the beginning. He gives us the biggest smiles and we even got some real laughs from him yesterday. He loves to watch you make faces at him and goes nuts when you tickle his belly. He goes from sleep to smiles so fast! For as challenging as it can be to be a mom, it is beyond rewarding. The other day I picked him up and took a deep breath at the side of his neck. In that instant I literally felt that heart-in-your-throat feeling and my eyes filled with tears. Apparently I’m still full of hormones!?

And you’ll see I wasn’t lying about that fist. He ALWAYS has at least one hand in a fist up by his face. We have to pry them open to see those long fingers!

Mr. Max

2011-08-09T08:07:00.001-06:00

Here are some photos from the last few days. I love being able to take photos of Max just about every day. I'm also finding out I apparently like taking his photo when he's hanging out in his crib. He just seems so peaceful in there. He loves staring at his mobile and looking at the blinds.

(I promise he doesn't sleep in his Boppy.....that's a no-no. This is just when I'm getting ready or something and I can always see him.) :)

This video was from yesterday. You can hear Max making some of his new noises. He seriously pants like a dog too. He breaths so fast and loud sometimes!

5 Weeks

2011-08-05T10:33:00.002-06:00

Day trip to Leadville, CO

2011-08-04T13:06:00.001-06:00

Saturday was a perfect day for another trip to the mountains. This time we decided to head to Leadville. Carl had heard that it was really old and had a cool main street area. That's what I'm always in search of when we go to these kind of places. It didn't disappoint either! It was about 30 minutes south of Breckenridge, but really felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. Every building and house was painted a different crazy color. You can just feel the age when you're somewhere like this. We parked and walked all around to the shops, museums and from house to house. I found some great props at a neat antique store they had too.

Max slept the entire time we were walking around so he didn't make it in any photos.

Carl found this super old toboggan, aka bobsled. If you don't know Carl's history, he was a Jr. Olympic bobsledder when we were in high school. This was pretty cool for him to see.

I found this awesome wall covered in skis. Heaven forbid my child actually stands still for a good photo though. He can get so crazy and wild. It was all he could do to stand and give me this look. Although, I actually think he looks like me in this photo. Anyone?????

Since Max slept the whole time he was starving by the time we were ready to hit the road. Carl found this lake pull-off where I could stay in the van to feed Max and the boys could go out and explore. You can't beat these kind of views!

Carl's view from the bottom on the other side.

The last few weeks

2011-08-01T10:13:00.002-06:00

I have a lot of random photos to post so here they all go!

We went to our neighborhood block party two weekends ago. We've actually never gone in the 4 years we've been here so this was a first. They had a fire engine last year so that was a big selling point for Carson this time. He has been talking about fire and firemen all the time lately! I figured it would just show up for a minute and the kids could look at it. But they stayed for a long time (until they got called away) and let the kids play in the hose water. If I would have known that I would have dressed Carson in his swim trunks, but he couldn't have cared less. He and Dustin jumped right in the action. This went on for quite a while and Carson took more than his fair turns at the hose.

Here is my beautiful mama and Max.

The new smile phase is the BEST!

Crashed out on Daddy's chest. Complete with some spit up. I think we'll keep Carl around.

Max had fallen asleep on me in the Boppy. I transferred him to Carl and he didn't budge. I made him freeze for a photo.

I looooove getting good pictures of Carson's eyes.

This one is a little extreme, but it's pretty cool too.

This one is from the first few days at home, but I just never posted it.

I'm seriously so glad that we have cameras in our phones now. There are so many photos that I snap with my phone everyday that I never would get to capture since I don't always have my real camera close!

One of the best parts of Carl's job is that we get to meet up with him for lunch whenever he's close by or we are out and about. Carson wants to be just like his daddy. I looked across the table and couldn't stop laughing when I saw he had put his sunglasses on the back of his head like Carl.

Getting ready for bed with my little snuggler.

Carson put on just SOME of the hats my dad brought for his 3-day visit.

Max's first bath with the same towel we used for Carson's first bath. :) Max absolutely loves it. Carson used to cry all throughout bath time as a baby and Max doesn't make a peep. He seems to like to be warm.

Max - 1 month old

2011-07-29T15:31:00.000-06:00

I realized this morning that I should probably get our first round of monthly photos done ASAP. If I didn't do it at 8am when I was thinking about it it probably wouldn't have happened! Little man was happy as ever! I also decided that I'm NOT using the physical paper this time like I did with Carson. That was a total disaster past about 5 months. He figured out he could attack and eat it and it was all downhill from there. This time I'm just throwing the words on in post and running with it!

I took a few other photos while we were at it. I went back to look at the photos of Carson on the day he turned one month old and these two caught me as being SO similar! (And I got to laugh at my earlier camera skilllzzzzz....)

Max:

Carson:

We didn't do a full nursery this time because we wanted to keep our guest room. We basically have a second room inside our bedroom so we set up the crib, rocker and changing table in there.

I wanted something a little different for his name on the wall. I designed these wall letters to match the bedding and other baskets etc. and I think they turned out pretty cute! The other elements you can't see are the same green color so it works well as the accent.

Max's Newborn Photos

2011-07-28T17:15:00.000-06:00

I know it may sound a little crazy, but I wanted to wait until our birth announcements went out to post all of Max's photos. I have the majority of everything ready to post though. I'm going to try and make some sense of how to put stuff in groups, but there will probably be a lot of random photo posts in the days to come.

Tomorrow Max is officially 1 month old. I'm pretty sure that I blinked and July fell of the face of the planet. It has been such a fast and amazing month for us. I took these photos in the first week that Max was home. He was big-ish to start with, but he's already growing like crazy. I was really hoping to get some photos of him on his belly, but he was not having it. You'll see he loves his fists up by his face though. And really, can you deny those lips???

Here is our adorable little 80-year-old-looking newborn babe, Max.

Max's tiny fingers make Carson's hands look so big.

Max's Birth: Part 2

2011-07-21T11:49:00.000-06:00

Slowly but surely I am getting through all the photos I've taken in the last 3 weeks. Our little (big) guy turned 3 weeks old yesterday...somehow. These days have just flown by. On one hand I feel like I should still be pregnant and on the other it is like Max has been in our lives forever. I feel so bad and guilty for questioning my potential love for him in the early pregnancy days. I just couldn't imagine having two kids since it felt like Carson was my one and only. Again, I think being an only child has a lot to do with that. But my heart has managed to more than double. Max is like a new extension of me. There are times I feel like we are literally magnetic and I can't bear to let him leave my arms. I could (and sometimes do) spend all of my days just staring at him. It's amazing how much he looks like Carson as a newborn. He's already fitting into some of Carson's 0-3 month outfits instead of newborn sizes. I can't wait to do photo comparisons!

Anyway, here are some photos of the rest of the hospital stay. We were very lucky that everything was good and we were healthy so we only had to stay one night. We were beyond ready to get out of that uncomfortable room as soon as we possibly could. With Carson I wanted all the time I could get to soak up information and help. This time I didn't really have anything new to learn so I just wanted to be with our family at home. We are very fortunate to have my mom here to watch Carson. She was able to take the days off while we were gone to stay with him. She brought him up to the hospital the morning that Max was born. We didn't know what he would think about him. But from the first minute he saw him until now he is totally in love too. Lets just say that Max has had his fair share of slimy toddler kisses in his short little life so far! I was still pretty numb from the epidural until early afternoon so I shot their first meeting from the bed. :)

Our little froggy. He still has his legs pulled up like this, but is slowly now starting to stretch out.

You can also see his birthmark on his right knee. I've never found one on Carson so I wasn't expecting it. The nurse pointed it out to me right after he was born.

Carl wasn't too comfortable on the joke of a couch/bed and I was running on a ridiculously small amount of sleep for the week. We were both pretty pooped by day 2! Max was nice and sleepy on his daddy though.

Time to go home! I put Max in my favorite newborn outfit of Carson's. He outgrew it really fast and I regretted not buying it in a larger size. I love that I get to put Max in some of the clothes that I loved so much and didn't get enough time with!

Max's 2 week check-up

2011-07-14T12:31:00.000-06:00

We had Max's 2 week appointment today. The nice part about being with Kaiser now is that they send a nurse to your house when you get home from the hospital so you don't have to take them out at 2-3 days old. He was born on Wednesday morning weighing 7lb 15oz. When we had his nurse visit on Friday he was down to 7lb 5oz. This is okay because it was 7% decrease and that's the highest number they want to see. I'm sure part it was that my milk didn't come in until about Sunday, even though he was still getting food at that point. So far, from what I can tell, he has been a great eater. He sleeps all day and I usually have to wake him up every 2.5-3 hours to try and get him to eat. I'll change his diaper and try to wake him up, but he often crashes after just a few minutes. He's sleeping great at night so I just do all I can to get him tanked up during the day.

Well, today he is 2 weeks and 1 day old. He got on the scale and weighed in at a whopping 8lb 10oz! This was awesome to see because it tells me he really is eating, even if it's in little sleepy spurts. He had gained a 1/2 inch in length and 1/4 inch on his head as well. Everything else way great and there were no obvious concerns.

Overall we cannot believe what an amazing baby and experience we are having with Max. We don't want to give Carson a complex, but these two boys are total night and day so far. Max is calm and he SLEEPS! The story of Carson's first year was that he never ever slept. It was torture and I felt like a zombie. I have a feeling this time it is part his nature and part my attitude and lack of anxiety. I admit I was a nervous wreck with Carson and his temperament just made it 100 times worse. I don't feel nervous with Max or scared if he starts to cry. I'm a seasoned vet at this point. :)

He is still really curled up with his knees at his belly and his feet turned up. He loves his hands in fists right up by his face. I could tell this was his exact position in my belly and so we aren't surprised to see this is how he is outside too. The only time he really cries is if you make him wait to long to eat. Other than that he just kind of lets out a little yell. We laugh that he sounds like Count Dracula when he really cries. Carson just cried and cried for the first few months of his life straight, or at least it felt like it, no matter what we did. It is a welcome change to have a baby that we can snuggle with and he's totally content. His eyes are super dark blue right now. But he sleeps so much that when he's awake it's an event! He has the best puffy little lips just like Carson did, round little ears and an actual innie belly button. His cord stump fell off on Sunday. He barks like a small dog when he's falling asleep along with open eyes that rolls back in his head.

Next issue, I seriously have a problem in the photo department. I have taken A LOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTT of photos. I am going to be processing them for a while. I am close to being done with the second half of the hospital ones and then I have his real shoot, a family shoot and so many candids. It has been hard finding time to sit at the computer with both boys and still trying to do my real job!

I pulled this one this morning so I have something new to share. Enjoy our tiny babe.

Max's Birth...Part 1

2011-07-07T11:47:00.000-06:00

So far I've gotten through the pictures from the actual birth and labor room done. I will post a part 2 with the rest of the hospital stay next. I really want to write out my labor experience as a record here though. There are so many things that I don't remember from having Carson and I never took time to write anything down either. This will probably be long, but it's just as much for me and my horrible memory as it is for anyone else who is interested. :)

Last Monday night I was 4 days overdue. Around 1am on Tuesday morning I woke up with what I thought were real contractions. They hurt like crazy and so I ended up on the couch timing them until after 5am. I must have fallen asleep for about 45 minutes and woke at 5:45 with my alarm. There were no more contractions for the rest of that day so it was just another false alarm. I slept about 30 minutes during Carson's nap time so I was very tired at this point. That night at dinner I was still feeling kind of funny. I told Carl something felt different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He basically said "yeah right" and I didn't want to get my hopes up. We got Carson in bed and around 9pm while I was getting ready for bed I started getting contractions again. I was SO mad because I was already so tired and needed to sleep. These ones were the most painful so far. Again, I went straight down to the couch so I could at least watch TV while I was timing them and hopefully Carl could sleep if he had to go to work the next day.

Around 1am my contractions were an average of 7 minutes apart. Everything I've been told by my doctor etc. says to call in at 5 minutes apart. However, I had to finish getting my bag together, we live 45 minutes from the hospital, I was already dilated to 4cm the week before and I was supposed to have 5 hours of IV antibiotics before he came into the world. I figured it wouldn't hurt to just call and see what they say. They immediately told me to get to the hospital. Apparently second+ time moms should actually watch for 8-10 minute intervals because we tend to progress much faster. I went up and started getting my stuff together. Carl didn't budge so I went over and poked him. He looked at me like I was lying! He was up in a daze. I went in to tell my mom and she about jumped out of her bed, both from sleep and excitement.

We got to the triage unit at about 2:30. They checked me and I was almost at 6cm. We were quickly taken up to the laboring room. Apparently they had a huge rush of people after us and ran out of rooms so we had good timing. The IV was hooked up at 3:45am so I knew that meant they wouldn't want my water to break until at least 8:45. The nurse said if I wanted an epidural I could have it at any time. I was still going back and forth on this because with Carson it took away the contraction pain, but I felt everything during the active labor. While the nurse walked out I had a few contractions that I didn't even know what to do with. They were so painful and I couldn't figure out how to work through them. I quickly decided it was a big fat YES to the epidural. They called for it and it was done and working by 4:40am. This also meant that I had a few hours to sleep because I was now so relaxed and my water hadn't been broken. I was also still at 6cm so we were good to go.

Lights were out at 5:00am on the dot. Literally at 5:05am I was dozing off when I felt a pop. There goes my water! I called down for the nurses and they were just laughing. I still tried to sleep, but my legs were extremely numb and it was hard to be comfortable. At 6:00 my hip started to hurt really bad and I was too numb to move on my own. I called the nurse again to come help me move and make sure all the cords were okay. As she started to move me I realized I could feel something down there. She said it was probably nothing, but would check anyway. Sure enough, his head was right there and ready. I knew I wasn't totally crazy! haha Talk about fast progression though!

Everyone started getting ready to go and I started pushing at about 6:20am. For some reason my contractions never ended up being closer than that 7ish minutes apart. In total I only pushed through just over 4 contractions, but it seemed to take forever since they were spaced far apart. I pushed for an hour and 15 minutes with Carson! On the fifth contraction they yelled to stop pushing and he was on his way out. I never cried at all. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face and was actually laughing. I guess that's the power of a good epidural! He had the funniest little cry and was actually crying before he was all the way out. We were beyond happy to meet little Max, even if it was 6 days late. He was born at 6:48am on June 29, 2011 weighing 7lb 15oz and 21 inches long.

I set the camera up to the settings I thought would work best and Carl quickly went between the camera and video camera for the first few minutes. For a rookie he did pretty good! I'm just happy to have photos of our first moments together. We got to stay in the room for about an hour before moving to the post-partum room. It was nice and quiet so the three of us could just sit and be together. Other than not being able to walk for at least 6-8 hours afterward, I couldn't believe how good I felt through everything. I'm sure part of it was that I was so much less anxious this time around, but I didn't walk away from Carson's birth with positive thoughts about the labor. All I wanted this time was to go into labor naturally. Everything worked out like it was supposed to. To say we are so in love with these two boys would be a gross understatement.

The first time I laid eyes on him.

Max William Wooten: 06.29.2011

2011-07-03T14:50:00.001-06:00

We are so happy to report that we welcomed our second son, Max William Wooten, into the world on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 6:48am. He was 7lb 15oz and 21 inches long. I am working on getting all the photos from his birth and the hospital stay done as well as my labor and his birth story. We could not be more in love. So far he is beyond amazing and has outdone himself in the "good baby" department.

Welcome Max...

Better late than never?

2011-06-28T10:21:00.001-06:00

So I closed the last post saying that hopefully the next post would be an introduction. Here we are a week later and guess what this is not..... Apparently either we'll have two little (late) peas in a pod, I just have an amazingly comfortable uterus or my body doesn't know how to finish out its job. I really never thought we'd be here at five days overdue again after Carson came 8 days late. From everything I have heard it is more common to go over your due date, but I just had a feeling all along that I wouldn't this time. Wishful thinking.

At the doctor's last Thursday I was 4cm dilated and 75% effaced. I wish I didn't know that information because it gave me some false hope. I didn't think you could be that far along for an extended period of time. Last night I finally had a few hours of what I thought was real activity with a lot of pain and then it all stopped. I'm not going to count on anything anymore. The other option is to go in and have them break my water. Luckily I've got enough progress that I wouldn't have to be induced with drugs and breaking my water would undoubtedly get things moving. I already did the whole "schedule your child's birth" thing with Carson though. I realllllllly don't want to do it this time. As crazy as it probably sounds I want to have the experience of waking Carl up and grabbing our bags to head out in a frenzy. You know, like most normal people do. But at this point I only have a couple days of fight left in me before I cave and we just go in.

We've been trying to keep busy, but it is so hard to think about anything else. Sunday was a gorgeous and hot day so it was perfect to go to the pool. My mom had a one piece that fit me and we all headed out. It felt so good at the time in the water, but I couldn't believe how sore I was that night and all of yesterday. I had to go to the store yesterday morning for more Tylenol because I was out and couldn't take it!

Carson has been on a picnic kick so we told him we'd have a pool picnic.

After a good nap we went for a drive to a new area close to us that we had never been to. We had dinner and just explored without getting too far from home. I asked Carl to take what I hoped would be my last belly picture when we got home. You can see that Carson insisted on doing scooter circles around me the whole time.

As for the little monster, in the last week he has had his ups and downs. He seems to be really excited about the baby coming, but has had some unusual crying episodes too. I'm sure it will be hard on him no matter what.

I've been trying to get him to say his ABC's forever now and he would always just stare at me. Then all of a sudden one day not too long ago he said Q-Z out of no where. Next thing we know he is busting out the whole thing. He has repeated it day in and day out every since. He says it for anyone that will listen in person, on the phone and even to the grocery checkers.

He made a pine cone bird feeder at daycare a few months ago and had been asking me to make one here. I've never come across any pine cones though. Last week we randomly found two while we were out. He thought it was so much fun to make them and pick where to hang them in our front yard. He showed all his friends. :)

Other than that he has been so good yesterday and today. He must sense that I need to chill and has been playing without too much incident. He is watching Toy Story on my laptop next to me as we speak. He'll stop what he's doing and come over to kiss and pat my belly. He really can be sweet when he wants to. Yesterday he wanted to nap in our bed and I wasn't going to argue!

After being up from 1:30 to 5:00 this morning and up for the day at 6:00 I can't WAIT for nap time today!!!!

It's the final countdown!

2011-06-20T12:45:00.000-06:00

I'm not really sure where this post will go or why it's even in existence.......... I guess I just have a bunch of random thoughts in my head at this point. I thought all along that I would have this baby before my due date since Carson was 8 days late. I assume our children will always keep us on our toes so why wouldn't this dude come super early? I guess I've got a nice comfortable little womb in there though. Today I'm 39w4d so pretty darn close to our due date. Last Wednesday night I was up with my first bout of real painful contractions, but they didn't last. I had a doctor's appt that next morning where I found out I did have some progress (1.5cm, 50% effaced), but nothing else has happened since. I had two semi-contractions while eating dinner last night and that's been it for 5 days.

We are actually hoping that he comes close to a weekend, like this Thursday or Friday would be perfect! :) Carl's vacation time doesn't start until July 1 because that's his work anniversary date so we're hoping the two personal days he can take when we have him fall around the weekend. Otherwise he's going to have a pretty tough time going right back to work after a mid-week hospital stay. I've told him that he is more than welcome to come home and sleep here since I think I can handle the nights alone. We are so lucky that Grandma Susan has a ton of vacation time and a flexible work environment so we don't have the added stress of what to do with Carson. She'll hopefully be able to take a few days off to help when he gets home and Carl's vacation time hasn't started yet. I'm honestly more worried about dealing with Carson in the first days than I am the baby!

It may sound a little dramatic to say that I'm afraid of what Carson will do at first, but he can be a real handful. On Friday we were upstairs when my boss called. I had to run downstairs to get on the computer so I let Carson stay up there. I didn't want my boss to hear the wrath of dragging him down the stairs and getting settled. It had been WAY too quiet for this short duration so I was dreading what I'd come up to. Turns out he went in and pulled out an entire bag of Grandma's makeup. It was all over her floor, crushed eyeshadow, black smudges in the carpet, everything. Then he proudly showed me his "purple cheeks!". I eventually found that what he had was a purple lipstain that he drew on his face. He thought it was so cool and that Daddy would be so proud of him. :)

He does and says so many funny things every single day. I absolutely love watching him learn and grow. He busted out the full alphabet this weekend out of nowhere and will say it to anyone that will listen. The other day he came in the office to find the light shining down through the glass of his desk. He was so excited that there was a rainbow in here and looked at me like a crazy person when I tried to explain it to him. He wanted me to take a picture of it on his feet so he could see it.

He's constantly riding his bike out in the backyard these days.....and if he gets off at least he keeps his helmet on. :) Safety first!

He very lovingly helps Daddy rub my feet (aka sausage toes).

He's getting so much better with potty training. And when he's not, he's a diaper box robot.

He helps out Daddy and Daddy's pals with any and everything guy related. He got to take a ride in Justin's tool truck this weekend.

Basically he's just a hoot.

As far as baby stuff goes, I think we are just about all done and ready to go. The changing table finally showed up on Saturday and we found baskets for it yesterday. The crib is all put together, the clothes are put away in the drawers, the swing is all together, the carseat is cleaned and my bags are as packed as they can be at this point.

My mom and I were at Babies R Us last weekend and found a side-cap of clearance shoes. They had this ONE pair of baby Pumas that were marked down from $29.99 to $3.80. I couldn't resist because they were beyond cute and then when I bought them they actually rang up at $1.85! Totally worth it for his own first pair. We have kind of turned into a Puma family so it seemed fitting. I also got Carson a new pair of Nike's for $6. I had her search out the last size 10 and when we got home they were way too big on him (which is weird since he's almost an 11 in everything else). I went back and bought the 9's too to wear now since they were so dang cheap! I sure love me some clearance items. Here are the Pumas:

As far as my gear goes I definitely have a favorite. I casually asked my friend Erin about her PPB diaper bag a while ago because I was eying this one online, but hadn't seen one in person. The bag was backordered everywhere so I figured I had time to decide if I wanted to buy it or not. Well, we have awesome friends because Erin & Nick, Megan & Justin and Luke all surprised us and got it for us as a gift. I was so shocked and they really shouldn't have. Not to say that I'm not thrilled! I've had it on my desk staring at me ever since. I decided I don't want to use it until the baby is here so it feel fresh and new for the experience. I am having a serious obsession with gray and yellow right now so this just hits the spot!

Hopefully the next post will be an introduction! Hey, a girl can dream, right?

38 weeks - Maternity Photos

2011-06-10T10:39:00.000-06:00

I am more than lucky to have an amazing friend and fellow photographer that also just happens to be pregnant. Jamie is about 6 weeks behind me, but is having twins so her belly couldn't be cuter and perfectly round right now. We have been trying to plan a day to get together and do each others maternity photos for weeks now. You can imagine how easy it is to reschedule when you feel a bit unmotivated at this point. We were obviously losing time that we can't get back so we made the commitment to meet up on Wednesday night. Goody for us that this day it decided to be totally stormy. We got about three minutes of shooting Jamie in and one of me before it started raining on us. We waddled back to the car and tried to head further East to get ahead of the storm. It didn't rain any more, but was SO windy that it was nearly impossible to get a good shot of our faces. The wind made our hair a total mess and we could only stand in the one direction with it coming right at us. Not the best scenario...... But I am more than happy with what I ended up with. I hardly even have a record that I was pregnant with Carson so I am so grateful to have these photos now of this baby in my belly.

I also had my 38 week check up yesterday. I haven't had any activity or contractions to speak of so my doctor's appointments are pretty lame. They ask me if I have any questions, I say no, so they ask me questions that they already have answers to. It's a waste of time, but I guess it has to be done. The good news is that my blood pressure and all the other stuff looks really good this time. At the end with Carson they thought I was developing pre-eclampsia and had some concerns. This pregnancy has also measured exactly the same as with Carson. With both of them I have been the exact number of centimeters I should be up until week 36 when I measured 34cm. Then at 38 weeks I am measuring 35cm. Luckily that is normal and will hopefully mean this guy will be in the 7-8 pound range too which I am more than happy to handle! At my 36 week ultrasound he was head down. I hoped to get a good look at his face, but his arms were up in front of it and you could only see one eye and part of his forehead. Oh well! She did confirm that he is for sure a he though.

We are pretty much prepared at this point. I'm still waiting for our changing table to come in that we bought on April 15. It was only supposed to be back-ordered until the end of May and now they are saying it could be another couple of weeks. I really want to get his clothes put away and the room finished so it's the last piece of the puzzle that is driving me insane. We're ordering a new swing and a few little things this weekend (Amazon gives you an extra 10% off if you create a registry!) but it isn't crucial to have from day 1.

But for now I am trying to appreciate how good I still feel at this point of my last pregnancy. I'm getting a tad anxious about how having two will really all play out. I still don't want to wish it away and I'm attempting to get as much sleep as I can. Unfortunately Carson has been up by 6am every morning, even on weekends, which is no fun at all. He even fell out of his bed at 1:30am this morning because he was so restless and wouldn't stop moving around.

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

2011-05-31T15:43:00.000-06:00

We ended up having a relatively eventful and fun long weekend, even though we went into it without serious plans. Saturday morning we went to grab some breakfast and go grocery shopping. Since my husband is wonderful he has been coming with me for a few weeks for the big grocery trips to do all the heavy lifting. On the way home we could see it was a gorgeous day and he said he wished we had gone for a drive. I obviously asked why we still couldn't because it wasn't that late. And it wasn't like we had anything else to do! So we quickly got ready and our stuff together and took off for the mountains by 11:00.

I hadn't been pushing a four-wheeling trip lately because I was scared of what my bladder would feel like. Sorry if that's a little too much info.....but I'm uber-pregnant now! Carl knew of a trail area we could go to that wouldn't be too rough above Idaho Springs. Let me tell you, the first ten minutes of the trail before we stopped to air down the tires were BRUTAL. The little guy woke up and was kicking out my sides as he was also shifted right on my bladder. Every bump was almost torturous. After the air-down I was 99% good though. We ended up in a completely different place than Carl thought we would and we still don't really know what summit we were on. It was so gorgeous though. Carson took about 2.4 seconds flat to jump in the biggest puddle he could find and he climbed every hill in the area.

Carl drove the Jeep up in every precarious position he could to make me as nervous as possible.

See a theme with the hills???

I begged Carson to stop and just look at the camera with a smile for one teeny tiny second. Instead I got this.

Carson only wants to be doing what his daddy is doing. I came back from a much needed potty break at the gas station when we were done and found this. Carl was putting air back in the tires and Carson was right there as his wingman.

On Sunday we had big plans for the morning. We have been anticipating the day we take Carson to his first movie for a long time because we love going so much. When we saw months ago that Kung Fu Panda 2 would be out this weekend we said that would be the first one. Believe me, our household could recite the first one in our sleep thanks to Carson! We went to the earliest showing and got there early enough to get the best seats. At first he was running up and down the aisles and we were a little worried. But he eventually sat in his seat for the previews and ended up doing really good! He had three of us to go between and sit on our laps, but he stayed in his seat for the most part. He didn't try to escape once and ate a little too much movie popcorn. He actually didn't seem to be overly impressed by the whole thing. At one point in the middle he asked to play with my phone. Go figure.

And a lesson for everyone who keeps their camera on auto..........DON'T!!!!!!!! I am so disappointed everytime I hand over my camera and turn it to auto. Normally I could just pick the settings I'd want for them to use and it would be fine, but for a while I have used an alternate shooting method that doesn't make that possible. I don't use the typical shutter release and can't flip it over easily. Auto is my only option to get out of the other mode. Cameras are stupid. If you give them any control you'll be disappointed. I couldn't believe in this lighting situation it picked a shutter speed that wouldn't be acceptable in bright sun. I mean, could we be any blurrier?!?!!?!

On Monday we ended up with a good-sized gathering at our house. It always goes from a casual grilling to a party. We had a ton of fun though and really good food. Carson played and played and played. Once again he just wants to be one of the guys. He got his first experience with frisbee golf and doing "recon" to fetch them all over the fence.

Another bug we had to hold and let crawl on him. Yucky yuck yuck. Luckily my mom doesn't mind them at all and is the designated bug-catcher.

After everyone left we all crashed on the couch. Carson hadn't even attempted a nap so we knew he was pooped. It was 5:30 and in about 3 minutes he went from wanting to play with my phone to being in a knocked out ball on my lap. Poor kid was DONE.

For Mother's Day my mom planted a new flower on my front porch. It had gotten cold just after so we haven't had any flowers. Three of them came to life yesterday though and they're so pretty!

35 Weeks.....35 Days?!?!

2011-05-20T16:24:00.001-06:00

Well, technically this was yesterday's milestone, but it still counts. I looked at my app for the start of week 35 and it happened to say that I had 35 days left also. Yikes. This is starting to get much more real since we are barely pushing a month.

I have been so so so tired lately. Sleeping is a pathetic attempt to get sort of comfortable for a few minutes until I have to pee again or my hips/groin feel like they'll explode. I am just SO thankful that I'm still not having any major issues with my lower back like I did with Carson. That was the main story in my third tri with him and then I had total back labor. I actually feel pretty good right now other than the exhaustion. And it helps to have Carl and my mom as such huge helps in my everyday life. I know once we have two boys I'll look back at life with only Carson and laugh at how easy it was. It's all relative at the end of the day.

It's been raining (and crazy hailing) all week long. We finally had a clear-ish day today so we have been playing outside. Apparently it was a little too dry for Carson so he dumped out his sandbox lid full of rain water all over the patio. Boys and their puddles....

I realized we haven't taken any belly pics for about two months. I set up the timer just to get a quick something and Carson came over to "love my belly". He's being very sweet about the baby coming. He always tries to look in my belly button and puts his ear up to it saying he can hear the baby crying.

Denver Botanic Gardens

2011-05-06T07:26:00.000-06:00

We finally had good enough weather to go play at the gardens with Erin and Ava. I told Carson we were going to go play in the dirt and he wasn't going to argue. Somehow both Carson and I got sunburns even though it didn't feel warm enough at all. The wind here ruins lots of nice days, but the sun did feel great. Of course the froggy boots had to come, but they did come in handy with all the dirt around.

They let the kids plant lettuce seeds and bring the home. We'll see how fast I can help him kill this plant too.

Nachos!

2011-05-02T19:30:00.001-06:00

Maybe he was just getting ready for Cinco de Mayo? Nope. Carson can be a little obsessive over certain foods. He finds something he likes and locks onto it. One of his current favorites is nachos. Just plain chips with shredded cheese. He actually will swipe the cheese for a quick snack too. That has been a little messy more than a few times.

This morning (read, still in pajamas, so early) he was getting stuff out of the fridge. I told him to put it all back because he had just had breakfast. I then see that he has gotten a plate out of the dishwasher, gotten the cheese and the chips and has started to make nachos for breakfast #2. He was smiling and having a great time so who am I to stop him? The camera came out instead.

He sat there and ate the cheese straight off the plate before he would let me actually heat them up.

April Photos: Day 30

2011-05-01T19:42:00.000-06:00

I've come to the last daily photo. Somehow I kept it up a little better than I thought I could, even if it wasn't a perfect run. It really is a good exercise in making yourself pick up the camera and process at least one photo every single day. I need that push for my every day things sometimes.

For the final photo I thought I would get a shot of Carson in bed. I haven't taken any photos in his room since he has had his new bed. He has done really well with the transition. The crib is in our room now and he thinks it's a play pen, but loves sleeping in his big boy bed now. We were tucking him in last night and he was being a ham. He has to have his Pillow Pet against the wall and three other stuffed animals tucked in next to him on the other pillow. Bunny was getting night-night loves here.

April Photos: Day 29

2011-04-29T18:21:00.000-06:00

A whole lot more of the same today. It was supposed to be close to 70 degrees, but I thought it was cold! Carson played outside for quite a while still though. My mom got him the Nike outfit he is wearing here for his birthday. I put the shorts on him and he stood up and yelled, "I look just like Daddy!" Carl does wear basketball shorts around the house all the time so it was so cute that Carson noticed right away.

April Photos: Day 28

2011-04-29T18:18:00.002-06:00

And.........................there is no day 28. Oops again. This was a much harder task than I thought it would be and somehow a photo didn't happen yesterday. I'm actually really glad I didn't decide to do a 365 project like a lot of people do. That's a huge commitment!

April Photos: Day 27

2011-04-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

Nothing too exciting happened yesterday. We ran errands in the morning and played/worked in the afternoon. I was going to take a photo of Carson helping Carl mow the lawn, but my boss called just as they went out. We end up talking for a long time when we can focus! I decided to take the camera up for bath time. Carson is very particular about his baths. He has to have all the toys in the tub, dictates whether or not he'll have bubbles and barks at us if we forget any one little step. Last night Carl was shooting water at him and he thought it was hilarious. It made for pretty cute laughs!

April Photos: Day 26

2011-04-26T20:29:00.000-06:00

It threatened to rain all day long, but that didn't stop Carson from playing outside. Actually, I'd go crazy if I didn't get a little break when he's out there too. He usually doesn't care how cold it is and just runs around like a little mad man. Today he found a feather and was pretty eager to show it off (not that you can even see it here...).

I love his get-up. The Easter Bunny brought his froggy boots and they are an instant hit. I know how much he loved his snow boots this winter so this summer version for $5 was well worth it.

Don't you go outside looking like this?

April Photos: Day 25 & Carson's 3yr Check-Up

2011-04-26T08:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon we had Carson's 3 year check-up at the pediatrician. I was excited to get to go and meet the new doc in person since we had to switch them with the insurance change as well. Carson thinks the doctor is neat and told me he "won't be scared like Caillou" which I thought was so funny.

We got in the room and the nurse told me to take off all his clothes and put a gown on him. You know, like the kind adults wear when we go for an annual. I thought that was super odd, but tried it out anyway. I put it on him and he immediately started tugging on it. I had to get a photo because he was so annoyed. He told me he couldn't wear it because it was "boring". He just started calling things boring in random situations so he obviously doesn't know what it means. It cracked me up though!

His height was 38 3/4 inches and still 75%.

His weight was 33lb 6oz and hit 70%! He's been 25% for most of his life on weight so he's starting to even out.

Other than that he was diagnosed as a naughty little 3-year-old! :)

He did have to get one updated vaccine and he was so mad about that. He cried for a long time and wanted to call Daddy in the car. He whimpered in the backseat the whole way home. Then at bedtime when the bandaid had to come off we relived the entire experience. He knows how to milk it when he thinks it works to his advantage.

April Photos: Day 24

2011-04-26T08:09:00.000-06:00

After all the family took off mid-Sunday morning it was just time to relax. Carl had made breakfast for everyone and Carson tore through his Easter basket. We were so tired from the weekend and just wanted to sit around and do nothing but watch movies. Carson must have felt the same. It wasn't much past 11:00 and he crashed on Carl. This photo pretty much summed up the day!

April Photos: Day 23

2011-04-26T08:07:00.000-06:00

On Saturday we all went up for a drive to Estes Park. We love it up there because it isn't too far of a drive, but is still beautiful. Plus, you get old school handmade ice cream on Main Street! It cleared up for most of the time we were there, but we did get snowed on some.

When we got home it was time to color Easter eggs. I knew it would be potentially disastrous, but it was still fun. I took just a quick second to snap a photo....I didn't dare step away from all that dye and Carson!

April Photos: Day 22

2011-04-26T08:03:00.000-06:00

We ended up having a pretty busy weekend with family here. Dave and Jordan were here from Wednesday night to Sunday morning. Friday was my mom's birthday too. Carl had the day off so all the boys went out for the day and I got the house to myself! They ended up going to Boondocks because Carl wanted to take Carson on some go-carts. They were gone from early morning until dinner time so I never even thought about taking a photo that night. Carl sent me this picture while they were out though:

Carson's 3rd Birthday

2011-04-22T17:00:00.000-06:00

I know I posted a little yesterday about our day, but I have more to share!

I took this at the museum in the construction room. This was the first time I actually let him play in there because they have all real tools, sharp screws, real saws etc. He kept running in there so I carefully obliged. The safety glasses wouldn't stay on his face and he was cracking me up!

After we left the museum he slept in the car for the 15 minute ride to meet Carl. In Carson's world he thinks that means he has had his nap for the day. He wouldn't sleep at all when we got home, even though I sure wanted to! He played and played until about 4:30 when he sat down and wanted to watch a cartoon. After a minute he jumped up in the chair with Grandpa Dave and the next thing we knew he was out. It was adorable.

We had the family over for dinner and cake. A few weeks ago we were at Target and I let him look through their cake book. He saw the tractor cake and from that day on he said he wanted a "front-end loader cake!" anytime you asked him about it. He's pretty easy so a tractor cake was what he got. And he LOVED it! One of the books we read is called I'm Dirty. It's about a tractor (duh). He reads it along with me so he knows all the words. When he saw his cake he started reciting the page that says, "a mud cake with dirt sprinkles and a scoop of rocky road." The cake actually had dirt sprinkles and I hadn't made the connection. He's sure a quick little boy. :)

He couldn't keep his fingers out of the frosting.

Grandma brought him home a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse banner and four balloons. Only two are alive right now. He thinks they are made to wrestle with...

And then there's this. I asked my mom to get a quick photo of the three of us. When I saw us in the camera I could not believe how big I was! Granted I am 7 months pregnant, but I have bloomed a little more than I expected!

April Photos: Day 21

2011-04-21T17:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to our little dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to get Carson out of bed this morning and told him happy birthday. His response was, "did the Easter Bunny come?!" I told him he really needs to not waste a holiday!

We were going to go play at the botanical gardens this morning because last night it said that the weather would be great. But we woke up to rain and some snow. I decided we would just go to the museum because he's been asking to go back and it had been a while. We played there for a really long time and then got to meet Carl for lunch. We've been playing at home this afternoon with Grandpa Dave and Uncle Jordan who came into town late last night. Now we're going to have dinner and birthday cake, even though Carson is currently passed out on Dave's lap in the living room. It's adorable!

He was so excited for his own garbage truck:

April Photos: Day 20

2011-04-20T17:38:00.000-06:00

I spent most of today trying to get my computer and desk set up and cleaning the house. The computer has been so frustrating because I seriously have SO many cords coming in and out in a maze of equipment. At least it can all be hidden in a cupboard now, but I hate how jumbled it all is! Once again Carson thought he had to help me work on the main computer. We had to have our chairs touching and he kept jumping in to push a button or click the mouse. He is also obsessed with stealing paper out of the printer. Rawr.

Did I mention we didn't put the office gates back up? This is a trial...... we'll see how it ends up. We're hoping he can eventually stop touching everything he's not supposed to, but I don't have high hopes. We kept the two small desks that made up my old desk so we want to set him up his own little work station in here. I have a really really old laptop that I'm going to try to clear off and maybe get some games for him to play. I guess I just need some way to make him feel included when I have to be in here, but still interacting. It would be a good place to keep his crayons and crafts too. He's just so genuinely curious and inquisitive that he can't stand to not check everything out and ask what each and every thing is for.

I also got to put all the toys back in the living room since the carpet was dry this morning. A few of them came into the office for fun, and because we can now. He loves to hide in his Toy Story tent......you'll never find him! :)

And don't forget tomorrow is the BIG 3!!!!!!!!!!

April Photos: Day 19

2011-04-20T17:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was dominated by some deadlines. I had our big proposal extended to yesterday afternoon so of course that equaled a bunch of other work to get done in a crunch. Plus our new desk was coming sometime in the afternoon so I was trying to loosely time it all along with nap time so nothing got screwed up. Somehow everything fell into place even if it was sort of a stressful day.

Since the office has been cleared out I've had my laptop set up on the kitchen counter. Carson of course "just has to work" over and over and over during the day. He hasn't done any real damage, but enough to annoy me. The real problem is the header he took off of the rolling, spinning office chair on the wood floor. I have warned him so many times to be careful since the chairs are so unstable on the wood, but it is too fun to get "stirred". That's equivalent to being spun in Carson language. The time he really went over the edge head-first I had something in one hand and luckily caught his forehead mid-air with my other hand. He banged his knees, but I at least saved him from a nice bump on the head.

April Photos: Day 18

2011-04-18T20:29:00.000-06:00

Today was pretty hectic again. Carson went to daycare because the carpet cleaners were coming this morning. I worked until they were done and then used the last two hours of that time to run to the grocery store (something that is very difficult to do with him in tow right now). I then went to pick him up, came back home to put groceries away and headed right back out. I didn't know where we were going, but knew that I didn't want to try and keep him in the kitchen and off the carpet for the entire rest of the day. I hoped he would take a nap in the car, but he was so excited that we were leaving the house again that he couldn't sleep. We drove around for a while and finally ended up at Little Monkey Bizness. It had been raining off and on so this was a nice compromise to his playground request. We were there for at least two hours and didn't get home for the day until about 4:30. It was then time for me to do some more work and the boys went to the park. It is SO bedtime now. My main computer is still not back together all the way and my camera was up in my bedroom with wet carpet in between. Today we get LMB cell phone pictures. :)

I could barely drag him away from the painting area.

Much of his time was also spent here.

April Photos: Day 16 & 17

2011-04-18T10:12:00.000-06:00

This weekend was kind of a bust for photo-taking. Saturday we spent the entire day working on the office. We started taking everything out first thing in the morning, which included my computer. I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to process any photos anyway so I just didn't take any. It was such a tiring process, but SOOO worth it. We went to our friends' BBQ / housewarming party for most of the day yesterday and painted the ceiling detail last night. The carpets cleaners are here now and the desk comes tomorrow. It will be so much work to get it all put back together, but I can't wait! The paint looks so good and it is such a sense of relief to be getting it all done. Although, my legs hurt in a way that I sure haven't felt in a very long time!

The only photo I took over the weekend was yesterday at the party. It was around Carson's nap time and I just figured a nap wouldn't even be an option for the day. Somehow he spotted Wall-E on their shelf and wanted to watch it. Wall-E has been our go-to nap movie for a few weeks now so I was excited to try. Sure enough, he actually sat down to watch it and suddenly he was out. At home he'll wake up with a door being shut too loud. We were shocked that stayed passed out for about two hours with so many people coming in and out and talking and banging. It was nice to visit and know he wasn't getting into everything! :)

Here was the little monster:

April Photos: Day 15

2011-04-15T23:12:00.000-06:00

After the last two days I knew it was time for us to get out of the house today. We have a big home project planned for the weekend (......YAY!) so we took off this morning to go buy paint and supplies. Then we went to the mall, walked around, spent quite a while in the play land and had lunch. We came home for nap time and cleaned up the house some while we waited for Carl. Tomorrow we are finally going to paint the office walls which is one of the very last places not painted in our house, other than the laundry room and guest room. I always thought I'd want it a different color, but finally came to the realization that it should match the rest of the level. I'm just ready to have it painted. We have so much work to do tomorrow and then the carpets are all getting cleaned Monday morning.

Carl came to get us after work and we headed out to the furniture store. Before hand we grabbed some dinner. We were right next to a Sonic so Carl asked Carson if he had any room for ice cream. Carson answered, "I'm really full, but we need ice cream!" Carl asked him if he had an ice cream pocket too and Carson just nodded his head. Ice cream it was. I love being to the point where I don't care if he's messy because I can tell how happy he is in the process.

This was just the beginning of the cone, as you can see. It got much worse from here.

And this is also what we call "cheese face" because when you tell him to look at the camera he makes the most fake smile and says, "CHEEEEEEESE".

Because the office will be shiny and new, I finally decided that it was time to buy the desk I've been wanting. I spend SO much time in this office and it's been the biggest eye-sore of the house. I have had no way to organize the desk, hide computer equipment and cords etc etc etc. The new desk unit will show up on Tuesday and I'll be in business! I'm so excited to get it done the way I want so I actually want to be in here. I have photos to hang and so many ideas that have gotten shelved because the big stuff wasn't done. It feels like Christmas is coming!! :) We also ordered a dresser for the new changing table. I've shopped high and low for one that matched and was the right size without much luck. Finally we found something that is technically a media cabinet, but is a piece that is part of the dresser set in Carson's room. I hate all the actual "nursery" furniture that's out there, especially since it looks like baby furniture. I'd rather spend the money on a piece we can use in our house for the long run. The bad part is that it was back ordered until the end of May, but that is still enough time.

Okay, now I'm tired from thinking of the next three days..........

April Photos: Day 14

2011-04-14T18:30:00.000-06:00

Today was supposed to be fun, but ended up being lots of work instead. We were supposed to go play this morning with Erin and Ava, but not only did my work go nuts, we woke up to it snowing. We are bidding on a government contract for a new study and the paperwork to fill out is absolutely ridiculous. It took two full days just to get it all completed and my head is spinning from staring at nonsense and little check boxes.

Carson was so good for me though. He played and I took lots of break to play with him. He took a great nap just in time for me to make some phone calls too. Unfortunately by the end of the day he was getting restless. We'll for sure be going somewhere to get the sillies out tomorrow. When I knew Carl was on his way home we went out to sit on the front porch and wait for him. Carson thought it was too cold to play in the backyard today when he was bundled up, but if he's out looking for Daddy he doesn't need a thing.

And I'm 30 weeks pregnant today! 3/4 of the way there...

April Photos: Day 13

2011-04-13T19:12:00.000-06:00

Carson has been begging to make cookies for a week now. I finally had to oblige and we got stuff for oatmeal cookies when we were at the store yesterday. When I went to get him out of bed this morning he first words were, "Mommy, are we making cookies today?!" He was fairly excited. I never have high hopes for myself when it comes to baking though. Let's not forget my last cookie incident.

He sure thinks he is such a big helper. Carl lets him sit on the counter while they make breakfast every weekend so he wanted to do it this time too. It just makes me so nervous though! He is so squirmy. And as if baking isn't already messy enough....we were both covered in flour by the end. But the only thing that matters is that I didn't screw up the cookies and they were actually good!

April Photos: Day 12

2011-04-12T16:47:00.000-06:00

What a day. I'm pooped. Seriously, just running errands right now is so physically demanding that by the end of the day I am spent. We took off early this morning to go buy new sand and stuff we needed at Target. We got done around 11:00 and it was all I could do to get it home. I lifted way too much heavy stuff over and over again which didn't help at all. Carson crashed in the car, but Carl was close to home so we took him to play at McDonald's for lunch. It was so cute to see him wake up as we pulled in, ask if we were at "BicDonald's" and then see Daddy's work van. Let's just say he was pretty excited. We've been playing in the sandbox and doing chores for the rest of the day. These are the days I am so thankful for the crock pot!

We took a break to sit down and watch a cartoon. Carson refused to actually look up at me so I worked with what I was given. Poor kid got my short eye lashes.

I have waited and waited for his belly button to turn into an innie, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Actually it's sort of a hybrid outie-within-an-innie. I puffy heart it though.

April Photos: Day 11

2011-04-11T20:05:00.000-06:00

Carson went to daycare this morning so I could get some work and a teleconference done. He came home and took a really good nap until almost 4:00. But when he woke up he turned into a demon child. He screamed and yelled and nothing could make him happy. I tried and tried, but he eventually threw himself on the kitchen floor and had a good tantrum. I figured that was a good time for photos of our sweet sweet angel.

Look at that pouty face!

He still has so much congestion, it's hard not to feel bad for him. He finally at a really good dinner tonight. And then....he was down riding his bike in the basement while Carl worked out and lost it all on the floor. He coughs so hard from the phlegm that he'll eventually start gagging. That was fun to clean up! Not.

April Photos: Day 10

2011-04-11T19:59:00.000-06:00

Sooooooooooo............there is no day 10 photo. We had such a rough night on Saturday that I was sort of a zombie on Sunday. With Carson being sick all of last week neither of us got much good sleep. Plus, even when he does sleep I keep waking up for hours in the early morning with my pregnant insomnia. Saturday night he did not want to sleep at all. He cried and rolled on the floor and just yelled for so long. By Sunday I didn't want to do anything. I didn't even get dressed until mid-afternoon. By bedtime I realized it never dawned on me to pick up the camera. Oh well!

April Photos: Day 9

2011-04-09T19:54:00.000-06:00

Technically I didn't get to take any photos of Carson today at all. Carl wanted to go take a four-wheeling trip for the day, but I decided to stay home. I have been with him on the trail they were doing so I knew how rough it was. Honestly, I didn't think my bladder could make it at this point in my pregnancy. Sorry if that's too honest. :) Plus I hadn't tackled our taxes yet. This seemed like a perfect day for the boys to play and I got lots of peace and quiet. I actually got quite a bit accomplished even though my back is now paying the price from sitting in my horrible desk chair all day long.

They took off at 7am and didn't get home until almost 7pm. I just don't have it in me to take any photos at this point tonight........ Carl gets to own today's photo. It makes sense though; this is what Carson did today!

April Photos: Day 8

2011-04-08T18:58:00.000-06:00

I was a little preoccupied this afternoon just in time for Grandma to come home. Carson went upstairs with her to watch a cartoon in her bed and then they had a little art time. He is loving the watercolors right now. And colored pencils are a little less dangerous than crayons...... He is getting good though! :)

April Photos: Day 7

2011-04-07T20:30:00.000-06:00

Carson still wasn't 100% today. We spent most of the day relaxing....which I'm totally not opposed to in my beached whale state. He took a three hour nap and we took our baths in the afternoon. Then we met Carl for Mexican food which was beyond yummy. Holy cow am I full right now though.

This afternoon Carson helped me clean up. The good thing about the stage he's at with the new baby coming is that he looooves to help us do everything. Any time you give him a task to do he is right on it. Today he vacuumed the living room and then got distracted by the kitties. That gate is the one thing that protects them from "him". You can just tell how much they get annoyed that he is there. But he totally loves them and just stands there beckoning them to come play. Lily does take naps on the couch with us all the time though. She slept on us for a while today and he said, "Mommy, Lily is my kitty, huh?!"

April Photos: Day 6

2011-04-06T14:48:00.000-06:00

The bad news is Carson developed a fever last night around dinner time and it lasted all through the night. I only had one dose of Advil left for him so we had to head out for more this morning. I ended up sleeping with him for most of the night because I was awake listening to him cough anyways. He was trying to sleep on the way home from the store in the car and it was early so he was obviously still feeling bad. I got him to eat something and he wanted to lay down to watch Wall-E. It was about three minutes into the movie when he was totally zonked out. Lucky for me it is one of my busiest work days of the month so I got a good quiet period to work! (Not to say that I'm happy his isn't up to par....)

The good news is that he woke up feeling much better and doesn't seem to have a fever at all right now. He got some energy back and ate some more food. He wanted to paint so it was spring picture painting time! I am not a very good influence on his artistic skills though. I did think the umbrella turned out impressive. :)

He's out back squealing and riding his bike now in the cold so he must be feeling better. It feels like it's going to rain any minute out there.

April Photos: Day 5

2011-04-05T16:42:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, today hasn't been very much fun for Carson. Yesterday morning he started coughing out of nowhere and threw up all over in our bed. It was all mucus because he is still so stubborn about blowing his nose. He seemed to be fine for the rest of the day. Then after his bath last night it seemed like the steam broke some of it up and the cough started back up. We were getting him in his pajamas and he threw up again. He was obviously upset, but slept fine. But as soon as he woke up this morning the cough was right back on. It's one of those ones that you can hear coming from deep in his chest. The poor kid just doesn't feel good today. With all the energy he has on a daily basis it is fairly easy to tell when he isn't himself. He has moped around all day with a blank stare on his face. I took us out to walk around some shops and he slept the whole way there and back in the car, then just sat there in the stroller without much fuss.

After nap time he said he wanted to play in the back yard. I got the camera and he was laying on the edge of the sandbox.

Then he went to the garage and said he wanted to ride his bike. (I can't go with him alone out front to ride his bike anymore. He is literally so fast that you have to run with him and that is totally impossible for me at this point!) He rode for a few laps and came right back inside. He didn't even know he was still wearing his helmet. He was standing in the kitchen for a while just staring at the TV.

We've at least had lots of snuggle time today...

April Photos: Day 4

2011-04-04T16:58:00.000-06:00

I knew when I saw the following scene that I should grab the camera before investigating further:

Nothing good can be happening when Carson is hiding somewhere without theatrics to go with it. We had some leftover Valentine's suckers that he stole and I eventually found in the seat of his dump truck today. Apparently he got one open and thought he had to go hide to eat it. I loved the "I'm busted" look he gave me when he peeked through the opening.

April Photos: Day 3

2011-04-03T17:55:00.001-06:00

On our way home today from running errands Carl stopped to get a Jamba Juice. Logical since yesterday we were grilling with 80 degree weather and today it is snowing! I didn't think I wanted one at the time so I didn't get one. Big mistake! Carson loved it too so I made us a batch when we got home for a snack. I've been craving fruit like crazy lately, especially melons and citrus. Carson sat down with his, but decided that Teddy needed the first taste. I love that he has finally started to play with his stuffed animals and role play with toys.

April Photos: Day 2

2011-04-02T17:21:00.000-06:00

Today we had our hospital pre-registration and tour so Carson got to stay home for lunch and a nap with Grandma. We switched insurance since having Carson so I wanted to go check out where we'd be going this time. I came home and decided the photos I wanted for today would be of little man's tiny fingers and long piggies. He's playing outside in this 80 degree weather and we're grilling! Ahhhh, spring.

We left the hospital and were planning on just heading home. Then I spotted a sign that said "desserts". I looked closer and saw it was D-Bar Desserts so we flipped around and decided to stop. The only reason I knew what D-Bar was is that it is owned by Keegan Gerhard from Food Network Challenge. I figured it was worth a trip in. Carl got a brownie sundae and I got a fancy banana split.

April Photos: Day 1

2011-04-01T15:18:00.000-06:00

It is a gorgeous afternoon! Yesterday it was so windy that Carson could hardly stand to be out back (and that's saying a lot). Although, he has sternly reminded me that we need new sand for the sandbox. We'll be getting the backyard going again next week. I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time out there very soon!

The view from above:

A little catch up...

2011-04-01T11:33:00.001-06:00

So we went on vacation, I posted when we came back and then I fell off the planet. Let's just say the last two weeks for me have been difficult. We came back from Carmel that Sunday night and I casually went through my photos for the next couple days expecting to post them by that Friday. No big deal, right?

Wednesday night it was about 10:30 and we were already in bed. I realized I was dying of thirst all of a sudden so I came downstairs for some water. I noticed Sophie, my cat, pacing at the back door. I went over and turned the patio light on and there was another cat sitting out there. Sophie's tail was puffed up, but she was meowing with her playful meow so I thought nothing of picking her up. After about 10 seconds I went to pet her head and as my hand got in front of her face she snapped and bit me. For real. Let me tell you, I've had cat bites before, but I knew instantly that this one was different. I ran upstairs to see the damage and was shocked to see two gaping wounds. One tooth went right in the meat of my palm and the other went in my wrist under my thumb. The one under my thumb was so deep it was just purple and didn't even bleed. Being the smart girl I am I consulted with Dr. Google. "Wash the wound and bandage." I did exactly that and figured I'd just see what it looked like in the morning.

By 1:30am I was wide awake and in agony. Oh, did I also mention this was my RIGHT hand?? I tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn't happening so I ended up on the couch with it elevated. When I got up that morning and took the bandages off (and felt the extreme pain and swelling) I knew I should probably call the doctor. They didn't hesitate and wanted me to come in immediately. The doctor started looking at it and pretty much gave me the third degree about not immediately going to the ER when it happened. Apparently it was more serious than I expected. She wanted to clean the two wounds out which didn't sound like a ton of fun. Annnnnd it wasn't. The numbing shots at each spot were so painful. She then dug the wounds out and they had to irrigate them with a TON of solution and a big pointy syringe. There was already a fairly large purple section growing up my arm so within 12 hours it was for sure infected. She made me come back the next morning with a promise that if it felt any worse over night I would go to the ER. The next morning she did think it looked a little better, but wanted to go through the entire cleaning process again. Man, that hurt so bad and keep in mind I can only take one 500mg Tylenol every 4-6 hours right now!

So now it has been 16 days and I'm still only about 90% better. I had to keep my hand elevated 24/7 with a brace on it for 10 days alone. The pain that I felt was as bad if not worse than when I broke both of my wrists. For days I couldn't do anything! I couldn't get Carson strapped in the car seat, couldn't do sippy cups, couldn't even dry my own hair! I couldn't put any pressure at all on any of my fingers so I quickly found out how hard it is to just have one hand. My wrist still feels bruised, the wounds haven't even healed yet and my thumb gets really achy by the end of the day.

Needless to say, I haven't been on the computer much at all for two weeks! Oh, and I couldn't even look at my poor camera. Thank goodness I had my iPhone so I wasn't totally out of the loop. I'm just now getting back into the swing of things. I'll hopefully have vacation photos ready to post soon. Here are a couple cell pics for the time being:

Sleepy dude

SpaghettiOs!

LOL - See my arm up in the air in the corner? haha

____________________________________________________________________________

Okay, the other thing is that today is April 1. Somehow that means this is the month that my little baby is turning 3. I've also had some serious camera withdrawl so I have decided to do a little photo project. I am going to take a photo of him every day in the month of April to post, aside from any other stuff I would shoot or post regularly. (Honestly I want it to force me back on the blog-wagon too!) I'm not making any promises that I won't mess up, but I'm really really going to try.

Today is also the last regular day of Carson going to daycare. He'll still go there when needed, but we've had a good 6 month run and I'm ready for him to be home with me. This is good timing with the weather getting nicer, getting serious about being totally potty trained and not being tied to a schedule right now. I am excited to spend the next three months just with my little man before the inside baby decides to come out and play. Yesterday was 28 weeks so I literally only have three months to go!

Double digits!

2011-03-16T12:09:00.000-06:00

I looked at my pregnancy app yesterday and saw the statement "100 days left" staring back at me. It feels like I've been pregnant forever, but seeing my ticker today say 99 days is sort of frightening and exhilarating. I made a list of the things I need (want) to do and get before the little guy comes along and I still have some work to do. It is a great feeling to not have a stressful pregnancy this time though. The first time is so nerve-wracking. You worry about every little thing that happens, or doesn't happen, and it can be hard to enjoy at times. I don't do well with the unknown and that was what the first time felt like to me. This time I feel like I can take on any of it and I'm not worried at all. If anything I worry about dealing with Carson after his birth more than anything to do with the actual birth or new baby.

We had an absolutely awesome time this weekend at the beach for four days. I'll have lots of pics to share very soon and all the fun details. For now, here is a quick 25 week photo from Carl's phone. He gave me crap all weekend about my stripes accenting the belly. I can't help it if they love to design maternity T's with stripes!! :)

24 week update

2011-03-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my 24 week appointment. I was freaking out a little about the weigh-in because last time she lectured me for only gaining 5 pounds and I knew I had gained plenty this time. Luckily I came in right where I am supposed to be so it wasn't a big deal. I need to stay off my home scale!

The baby was kicking away and had a heartbeat of 140, which is the same as Carson always had. All our genetic testing and ultrasound results came back totally normal. That's always good to hear even if it isn't foolproof. The baby is so low again too! When the doctor was trying to find the heartbeat yesterday she was looking around my bellybutton. I told her to try lower, which she reluctantly did, and then was really surprised how she got the resutls. I measured right at 24 weeks and the baby measured one day ahead of the due date at the ultrasound. Everything is good so far!

I have had some really intense pains this time around still, but everyone assures me it's "normal". Maybe so, but it is annoying nonetheless. The new fun thing is that for a couple weeks my left leg and ankle have been going numb. It seems to be getting more frequent and lasting longer too. Obviously the doc said something is being pinched in my lower back, but didn't have any real advice. She said I might be able to try physical therapy which I hadn't though of. The back of my thigh goes totally numb and then my ankle feels like when your foot falls asleep and is coming out of it. It hurts and tingles at the same time. I've tried exercise, stretching, walking etc. and nothing has seemed to help. At least it's just an annoyance right now and nothing that is threatening to the pregnancy. My back hasn't been too bad so far so I'm trying to stay positive.

I keep forgetting to have Carl take my picture so a couple times I've tried to do it myself. Better than nothing, right? I'm pretty sure he is popping out a little more in the last week or so because the upper part is starting to catch up. I had to go grab a few maternity t-shirts the other day because my normal shirts were too short all of a sudden! I think I might have to shelve this dress for now.....the buttons won't be laying flat for much longer.

23 weeks

A masterpiece, right?!?! hehe

24 weeks

My crafting bug is really kicking in now. Since now I have a real reason to make some stuff I've been having fun. With Carson I didn't have to buy hardly any clothes for him in the first 4-6 months. My friend Jeanette gave me an enormous bag of clothes that were awesome and then we got a lot as gifts. This time around I went through everything and picked out what I'd want to reuse since it's kind of a different experience. I'm amazed at how small everything seems when my baby is so big now. I can't wait to put the new baby in Carson's old outfits and do the comparison shots. :) I have bought a few things that I really wanted and then I am making some other stuff. Once we have a name picked out I'll be personalizing some things waiting in the wings.

I had a few of these onesies that were in really good shape so I'm doing something different on each one. I made this yesterday. I'm really over the "cutesie" graphics in the stores so I'm just going to do my own thing. I've notice almost everything I bought or made new has been gray so far...

My dad gets to come out on Sunday and then we go to Carmel next weekend. Yippee!

Stop. Blogger time.

2011-02-21T10:40:00.002-07:00

We've had a lot of randomness going on...nothing too exciting to write home about. On Saturday it was a gorgeous day (65 degrees!) so we decided to take a last minute drive up to Evergreen. We have only driven through this little town on our way to our pals' wedding and I have wanted to come back. It is actually one of the closest mountain towns to go to so it was an easy drive. Man do I love being up there! Carson's joy came in the form of a nice day and a playground. The snow is finally melted off of everything so he was going crazy. He threw quite the protest when we actually had to get back in the car and leave. Give him a slide and he's content for hours!

On a side note......I have been wanting to paint him a shirt for a few weeks. I asked him what he wanted on it and his response was "a hammer!". There was only one way to go (and it turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself). Don't forget about the end of THIS post!

Other than that, just more of the same.

Here is a cute video of Carson playing Wii with Dustin. This incredibly annoying game Dustin is stuck on works for Carson because he just has to push every button and his character jumps all around (not that he watches the screen much). He thinks he wins EVERY game he plays, but it's cute to see him so excited.

A couple weekends ago the Jazz were in town to play the Thuggets. Ugh, I do not like that team. I cannot wait to plan a trip out to Utah and take our boys to a game in Salt Lake. The energy was so lame at the Pepsi Center. Anyways, at the last minute we decided to find some tickets since it was on a Friday night so Carl, myself and our date-buddy Luke went to the game. I can call Luke that because the three of us have been on so many "dates" in the last seven+ years that I can't even count. haha Plus it was Luke's first pro sporting event ever! We also ended up getting to see Sloan's second-to-last win as Jazz head coach. That's just bittersweet. At the game we were saying there is no way he's ever going out unless it's from a stroke right there on the court.

We did get a single cell phone pic!

Now we have a trip to Carmel in three weeks to look forward to. I am counting hours, not days at this point! The baby is getting more active every day. I have had a little bit of an issue with my lower back already and lots of really low pains/pressure. This weekend I felt real kicks on the upper and outside parts of my belly instead of only internal and low parts. Carl got to feel a kick of the first time the other night too. I hope I can hang for four days of walking around! Luckily we'll have a car so I can guilt the boys into driving everywhere. :) The worst part is that last year my favorite things were the espresso machine at the house and the local cheese shop. I won't be able to do either of these! Boo.